By Elizabeth HowardI've read
a lot about thermals, but now I understand them. Thanks to Dr. Ian Worley,
pilot and professor at the University of Vermont, I went up in the sky
and found out what it feels like to fly in a thermal.

"I
take my students on aerial field trips because we can see things from
the sky that we can't see so well from the ground," said Dr. Worley.
"But more excitingly, we can have a feel of the sky and learn its
shape —what’s going on in the air—because though the air is
sometimes invisible we can feel it with the airplane.

Looking for Thermals
We hopped
aboard his plane and headed for the sky.

"Today, we’re
off looking for thermals, those rising columns of air that take gliders, hawks and butterflies to higher heights so they can glide to the
next thermal and find their way south during migration."

But where would we find a thermal?
And, I wondered nervously, what would it feel like to fly a small plane
through one?

A Tell-tale Sign
Dr. Worley
spotted a fluffy cumulous cloud and banked the plane to the left. A cumulous
cloud is the tell-tale sign of a thermal. The cloud forms when a column
of air rises and cools at higher altitudes. The moisture in the
air condenses and forms the cloud.

"We're
going to fly to it and see if we can get an upward rise of air, which
we'll feel as a bump. And if it's a REALLY good bump we'll feel it in
the seat of our pants," he said.

So off we
flew toward the cloud. Watch the video clip and ready the transcript to find out what happened.

Special thanks to Dr. Ian Worley for the invitation to fly, for his colorful commentary, skillful flying, and especially for "watching for a safe place to land" throughout the flight — but never needing it.

National
Science Education Standards

Physical
Science
Materials can exist in different states?solid, liquid, and gas. Some common
materials, such as water, can be changed from one state to another by
heating or cooling. (K-4)

Clouds,
formed by the condensation of water vapor, affect weather and climate.
(5-8)

Unbalanced
forces will cause changes in the speed or direction of an object's motion.
(5-8)

National
Math Standards

Numbers
and Operations
Compute fluently and make reasonable estimates.

Problem
Solving Solve problems that arise in mathematics and in other contexts.